Ziunia
Ziunia, legally the Republic of Ziunia '(Ziun: Repúbblia Ziunya'') is a country on the northeastern coast of the Southern Continent, directly south of the Equatorial Strait. It has a population of 56,000,000, making it the world's tenth-most populous country. Bordered to the south by Sednyana and to the east by Tabora and Zenia, Ziunia geographically occupies the region east of the Harb River and mostly north of the Incean Rainforest, with its interior dominated by tropical savanna, with its coast spotted with tropical rainforest. Ziunian culture is a complicated mixture of Zenian, Anglean, Sednyanese and native cultures. The region's northern coast was inhabited by the Ziun (Shyúún), a wealthy and civilized Harbic people under the cultural influence of Harbelon, and its inland by Inceantic peoples such as the Bęr. In the late ninth century, the region was conquered by the Anglean Empire, which established the province of Ziunia, while the Bęr organized themselves into the Beryllian Empire (Ekiwe Bęr-atah). The Ziun regions were relatively heavily Anglicized, creating an Anglo-Harbic Ziun culture. After the assassination of Emperor David of Vard in Baziunda ended the Anglean Empire, Ziunia collapsed into a number of battling states that eventually came under the domination of Sednyana. The era of Ziun independence was initially marked by turbulent political changes, including several revolution, a union under Gloernivard, and eventually a period of stability under the Republic of Ziunia, during which time Ziunia has prospered and become a developed country (albeit less developed than its neighbor Sednyana). Geography Ziunia has an area of 500,000 square miles, positioned at the northeastern corner of the Southern Continent and just below the equator, which runs some 30 miles north of continental Ziunia's northernmost point at Erzri. As such, all of Ziunia has a hot, tropical climate without distinct seasons, although it has a number of very distinct geographical regions. The northern coast of Ziunia, traditionally known as the Ziun Coast or the Lam, features a stretch of wet fertile tropical coastland, interspersed with patches of tropical rainforest and marshland, that ends at the Coastal Range (Yathoud), a low range of mountains and hills broken by the Nuri River, which empties into the Inner Ocean at the large Bay of Elam. The western boundary of the Lam with Tabora and Zenia lies at the Árb River, which breaks into a long, narrow Bay of Tibir; Ziunia's Madin provinces lies on the eastern side of the northern Árb and the Bay of Tibir and is known for its more Zenian-influenced culture (including large numbers of Zenian immigrants), as well as for being the historically heartland of the Ziun language and people. The Coastal Range becomes a series of hills in the west as it reaches toward Bela, the most populated region of Ziunia and its cultural epicenter. A vast, fertile plain south of the Coastal Range here contains Ziunia's two largest cities - its capital, Baziunda, and south of it the largest city, Salatya. Off the coast from Baziunda lie the Bazedem, the southernmost islands of the Ziunari, which feature volcanoes and mountains rising out of tropical rainforest. Monsoons typically come down along the eastern coast of Ziunia, hitting the Ziunari but not the mainland and making landfall just south of Salatya and the region known as the Ruz. This, the southern part of Ziunia's eastern coast, is much wetter and more forested than the relatively dry provinces of Bela, Kafyun and Ruz, and soon becomes a dense tropical jungle. '''Provinces History Ziunian history can be divided into a series of periods. During the Pre-Anglean era, the Western Ziun and later the Eastern Ziun controlled the country's northern coast, and situated themselves within the broader Zenian cultural sphere, although the Eastern Ziun began trading extensively with the Northern Continent and adopted Rramidi customs; the Inceantic Ber people controlled the heavily forested southeastern coast, and the Azdaqs dominated the interior tropical savanna. This ended in 779 with the conquest by the Anglean Empire. During the Anglean Period, the province of Ziunia constituted most of the country, while the Ber in the southeast formed the Kingdom of Beryun, a vassal state of Anglea. Anglea held Ziunia until 1227, when the assassination of David of Vard in Baziunda prompted war in Ziunia, an eventual declaration of the Kingdom of Ziunia before its dissolution and conquest by the Ber, who declared the Beryulin ''(Beryllian) Empire; meanwhile, the northern Ziun city-states became independent. Beryulin did not last long, however, and soon began to fall apart; in 1405, the entire area was conquered by Sednyana, before declaring independence in 1441 and establishing the Kingdom of Ziunia. The response to the Sednyanese conquest is typically seen as the origin of Ziunian nationalism. The Kingdom of Ziunia would last until 1567, when, inspired by Sednyana to the south, it fell to a democratic revolution that established the Ziunian Republic, modeled heavily off of and both military and economically supported by Sednyana. Though ostensibly democratic, the Ziunian Republic afforded special privileges to the white classes, and met popular discontentment from the black majority. In 1597, Ziunia was taken over in another revolution and a king was installed; however, within a decade, the country had fractured. Meanwhile, however, Ziuns had become heavily involved in the affairs of Correfuscidia, and in 1624 a Ziun became ''Primo ''of Rramidor as Atlas X. Gloern-Ziun thing, ends with war with Sednyana After the Treaty of Correfuscidia ended the war, Ziunia found itself with a second republic. This republic would last nearly a hundred years, '''Early history' The first inhabitants of Ziunia were Inceantic peoples who formed loose tribes that hunted and gathered in the forests along the country's northern coast and eventually ended up riding horses on the wide plains of the south and west. These people developed into a number of societies - the Bęr occupied the eastern coastlands, while the Azdaqs arose in the plains. The Ziun entered the picture from the northwest, as a Zenian client state at the mouth of the Harb River. This first Ziun state, historiographically known as the Western Ziun, ruled a large portion of Ziunia's north coast starting in roughy 300 BCE. The elites spoke High Zenian, while the lower classes in Tipris and to the east spoke an East Harbic language that would come to be known as Ziun after the state's name for itself, Aziunya. While the exact origins of this state were not known, it saw itself as a member of the Zenian world, and nominally paid vassalage to Harbelon, even as it grew quite powerful. It nonetheless continued to build temples and pyramids to Zenic gods and used the trappings of Harbelon to legitimate itself. The power of the Western Ziun, however, soon came to be too much for Harbelon, and in 242, Harbelon moved north to take Tipris and the mouth of the Harb River for itself. The Ziun were fractured, and the kings moved east, to the narrow fertile coastlands separated by a low range of hills from the endless dry savanna inhabited by the Azdaqs. While the Western Ziun attempted to establish a new capital at Guadmagiri, it was repeated raided by the Azdaqs and eventually abandoned. Despite the collapse of the Aziunya ''state, however, a people speaking a language called Ziun had spread out across the fertile coastlands and had begun moving east. While some were integrated into the Azdaq state, many others pressed east away from the growing Azdaq power and away from their original capital, eventually finding the more fertile land around the Niraz. A number of Ziun cities were established in this region, including Edanya (now Baziunda) and Abbaz, on the Ziunari. Around the first centuries of the common era, the rest of the Ziunari had also come to be inhabited by people speaking Ziun languages. A new state, more in the form of a confederation than a centralized polity like the Western Ziun, emerged here, known as the Eastern Ziun, and grew relatively wealthy on trade with Rramidor and, later, with the emerging state of Anglea. During the sixth through eighth centuries, the Eastern Ziun flourished as a key choke point of the Great Trade and the controller of the Equatorial Strait, culminating in a strengthening of the central state and the declaration of the ''Padax ''Aywar Turbarin as Emperor of the Ziun in 760, intentionally styling himself after the Anglean Emperor rather than the kings of Harbelon. During this time, there was a wave of Ziun art and literature and an embracement of the Ziun language and identity. After Turbarin's death in 772, however, the "empire" collapsed into a civil war, and rival Ziun states appeared with capitals at Abbaz and Edanya. Taking advantage of the political chaos, the Angleans allied with the Bęr to the south and drove the Ziun out of both the Ziunari and their continental possessions, knocking them back to only their westernmost territory in 774. By 779, the Ziun had been eliminated completely, and replaced with the Anglean province of ''Ziunia, with its capital at the newly renamed Edania. Demographics The majority language in Ziunia is Ziun, which is spoken as a first language by 81% of the population and as a first or second language by 94%. 8% speak Beryi, 6% speak Zenian, 3% speak Ukari 2% speak Incean, 1% speak Afa, and less than 1% speak a variety of other languages. Race Race has long been a fundamental source of distinction in Ziun society, and, while people of many skin tones and origins identify as ethnically Ziun, race nonetheless continues to play a major role in Ziunian cultural life. Approximately 20% of Ziunians identify as white, 50% as black, and 30% as neither. These binary classifications bely the enormous diversity of Ziunian heritage, as most people in Ziunia are descended from white Angleans and Sednyanese along with black Zenians, Ber, Azdaqs and other native peoples. The average Ziunian is darker in skin tone than Sednyanese whites but lighter than the average Zenian; however, many who identify as ethnically Ziun are distinctly white or black, those these do not constitute the majority. Whites in Ziunia form a larger percentage of the population in urban areas and hold a disproportionate percentage of the country's wealth, with a higher median income, higher levels of educational attainment, and longer life expectancies. This is generally regarded to be the result of inherited wealth and status from historical domination by the country's white population and a systemic bias against those of black heritage.